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the calves of his lips' in his morning and evening sacrifice; and the mouth of God unto them in his wholesome instructions and all holy admonitions. He goes before them in good examples of piety and holy conversation; and so governs as one that hath more than mere bodies committed to his charge.

Is he the husband of a wife? he carries his yoke even: not laying too much weight upon the weaker neck. His helper argues him the principal; and he so knows it that he makes a wise use of his just inequality, so remembering himself to be the superior as that he can be no other than one flesh. He maintains therefore his moderate authority with a conjugal love: so holding up the right of his sex, that in the mean time he doth not violently clash with the brittler vessel. As his choice was not made by weight, or by the voice, or by the hue of the skin, but for the pure affection grounded upon virtue; so the same regards hold him close to a constant continuance of his chaste love; which can never yield either to change or intermission.

Is he a father of children? he looks upon them as more God's than his own, and governs them accordingly. He knows it is only their worse part which they have received from his loins; their diviner half is from the Father of lights, and is now become the main part of his charge. As God gave them to him, and to the world by him, so his chief care is that they may be begotten again to God; that they may put off that corrupt nature which they took from him, and be made partakers of that divine nature which is given them in their regeneration. For this cause he trains them up in all

1 Hos. xiv.

virtuous and religious education: he sets them in their way, corrects their exorbitances, restrains their wild desires, and labours to frame them to all holy dispositions, and so bestows his fatherly care upon and for them, as one that would rather they should be good than rich, and would wish them rather dead than debauched. He neglects not all honest means of their provision, but the highest point he aims at is to leave God their patrimony. In the choice of their calling or match, he propounds but forces not, as knowing they have also wills of their own, which it is fitter for him to bow than to break. Is he a son? he is such as may be fit to proceed from such loins.

Is he a servant? he cannot but be officious; for he must please two masters, though one under, not against the other: when his visible master sees him not, he knows he cannot be out of the eye of the Invisible, and therefore dares not be either negligent or unfaithful. The work that he undertakes he goes through, not out of fear, but out of conscience; and would do his business no otherwise than well, though he served a blind master. He is no blab of the defects at home, and where he cannot defend is ready to excuse. He yields patiently to a just reproof, and answers with an humble silence; and is more careful not to deserve than to avoid stripes.

Is he a subject? He is awfully affected to sovereignty, as knowing by whom the powers are ordained. He dares not curse the king; no, not in his thought; nor revile the ruler of his people, though justly faulty: much less dare he slander the footsteps of God's anointed. He submits, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake, to

every ordinance of God; yea, to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake: not daring to disobey in regard of the oath of God. If he have reached forth his hand to cut off but the skirt of the royal robe, his heart smites him. He is a true paymaster, and willingly renders tribute to whom tribute, custom to whom custom, honour to whom honour is due; and justly divides his duties betwixt God and Cæsar.1

Finally, in whatever relation he stands, he is diligent, faithful, conscionable; observant of his rule, and careful to be approved such both to God and

men.

SECTION VII.

His resolution in matter of Religion.

He hath fully informed himself of all the necessary points of RELIGION; and is so firmly grounded in those fundamental and saving truths, that he cannot be carried about with every wind of doctrine. As for collateral and unmaterial verities, he neither despiseth, nor yet doth too eagerly pursue them.

He lists not to take opinions upon trust: neither dares absolutely follow any guide, but those who he knows could not err.

He is ever suspicious of new faces of theological truths, and cannot think it safe to walk in untrodden paths.

Eccles. x. 20; Exod. xxii. 28; Is. lxxxix. 51; 1 Pet. ii. 13; 1 Sam. xxiv. 5; Rom. xiii. 7; Matt. xxii. 21.

Matters of speculation are not unwelcome to him, but his chief care is to reduce his knowledge to practice; and therefore he holds nothing his own but what his heart hath appropriated, and his life acted.

He dares not be too much wedded to his own conceit; and hath so much humility, as to think the whole church of Christ upon earth wiser than himself. However he be a great lover of constancy, yet, upon better reason, he can change his mind in some litigious and unimporting truths, and can be silent where he must dissent.

SECTION VIII.

His Discourse.

HIS DISCOURSE is grave, discreet, pertinent; free from vanity, free from offence.

In secular occasions, nothing falls from him but seasonable and well-advised truths; in spiritual, his speech is such as both argues grace and works it.

No foul and unsavoury breath proceeds out of his lips, which he abides not to be tainted with any rotten communication, with any slanderous detraction. If in a friendly merriment he let his tongue loose to a harmless urbanity, that is the furthest he dares go; scorning to come within the verge of a base scurrility.

He is not apt to spend himself in censures; but as for revilings and cursed speakings against God or men, those his soul abhorreth.

He knows to reserve his thoughts, by locking them up in his bosom under a safe silence; and when he must speak, dares not be too free of his tongue, as well knowing that in the multitude of words there wanteth not sin.'

His speeches are no other than seasonable, and well fitted both to the person and occasion. Jiggs at a funeral, lamentations at a feast, holy counsel to scorners, discouragements to the dejected, and applauses to the profane, are hateful to him.

He meddles not with other men's matters, much less with affairs of state; but keeps himself wisely within his own compass, not thinking his breath well spent where he doth not either teach or learn.

SECTION IX.

His Devotion.

He is so perpetually resident in heaven, that he is often in every day before the throne of grace; and he never comes there without supplication in his hand, wherein also he loves to be importunate; and he speeds accordingly, for he never departs empty; while other cold suitors, that come thither but in some good fits of DEVOTION, Obtain nothing but denials.

He dares not press to God's footstool in his own name; he is conscious enough of his own unworthiness; but he comes in the gracious and powerful name of his righteous Mediator, in whom he knows he cannot but be accepted, and in an humble boldness, for his only sake craves mercy.

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